Stick a Fork in It, the Old GOP Is Dead

Barack Obama, John Boehner on a round of golf. )Westchesterbuzz / Flickr)

“There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party,” John Boehner told a Mackinac, Michigan, gathering of the GOP faithful last week. “The Republican Party is kind of taking a nap somewhere.”

Ex-Speaker Boehner should probably re-check the old party’s pulse, for the Bush-Boehner GOP may not just be napping. It could be comatose.

Consider: that GOP was dedicated to free trade, open borders, amnesty and using U.S. power to punish aggressors and “end tyranny in our world.” That GOP set out to create a new world order where dictatorships were threatened with “regime change,” and democratic capitalism was the new order of the ages.

Yet, Donald Trump captured the Republican nomination and won the presidency—by saying goodbye to all that.

How probable is it that a future GOP presidential candidate will revive the Bush-Boehner agenda the party rejected in 2016, run on it, win, and impose it on the party and nation?

Bush-Boehner Republicanism appears to be as dead today as was Harding-Coolidge Republicanism after 1933. And if Trumpism is not the future of the GOP, it is hard to see what a promising GOP agenda might look like.

A brief history: in seven elections starting in 1992, Republicans won the presidency three times, but the popular vote only once, in 2004, when George W. was still basking in his “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.

What fractured and overwhelmed the Bush-Boehner Republican Party?

First, demography. The mass immigration of Third World peoples that began with the 1965 immigration act, and the decline in the birth rate of native-born Americans, began to swamp the Nixon-Reagan New Majority.

Second, the collapse of the Soviet Empire and USSR removed the party’s great unifying cause from Eisenhower to Bush I—the Cold War.

After the Red Army went home, “America First” had a new appeal!

Third, faithful to the free trade cult in which they were raised, Republicans championed NAFTA, the WTO, and MFN for China.

Historians will look back in amazement at how America’s free trade zealots gave away the greatest manufacturing base the world had ever seen, as they quoted approvingly 18th- and 19th-century scribblers whose ideas had done so much to bring down their own country, Great Britain.

Between 1997 and 2017, the EU ran up, at America’s expense, trade surpluses in goods in excess of $2 trillion, while we also picked up the bill for Europe’s defense.

Between 1992 and 2016, China was allowed to run $4 trillion in trade surpluses at our expense, converting herself into the world’s first manufacturing power and denuding America of tens of thousands of factories and millions of manufacturing jobs.

In Trump’s first year, China’s trade surplus with the United States hit $375 billion. From January to March of this year, our trade deficit with China was running at close to the same astronomical rate.

“Trade deficits do not matter,” we hear from the economists.

They might explain that to Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

And perhaps someone can explain the wisdom of handing four percent of our GDP each year to an adversary nation, as U.S. admirals talk tough about confronting that adversary nation over islets and reefs in the South China Sea.

Why are we enriching and empowering so exorbitantly those whom we are told we may have to fight?

Fourth, under Bush II and Obama, the U.S. intervened massively in the Near and Middle East — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen. And the forces that pushed up into those conflicts, and so disillusioned the nation that it elected Barack Obama, are back, pushing for a new war, on Iran. They may get this war, too.

Yet, given the anti-interventionist and anti-war stance of Trump’s winning campaign, and of the Bernie Sanders campaign, U.S. involvement in Middle East wars seems less America’s future than it does her past.

After his 16 months in office, it appears as though the Trump presidency, no matter how brief, is going to be a watershed moment in U.S. and world history, and in the future of the GOP.

The world is changing. NATO and the EU are showing their age. Nationalism, populism and tribalism are pervasive on the Old Continent. And America’s willingness to bear the burden of Europe’s defense, as they ride virtually free, is visibly waning.

It is hard to see why or how Republicans are ever again going to be the Bush-Boehner party that preceded the rise of Trump.

What would be the argument for returning to a repudiated platform?

Trump not only defeated 16 Bush Republicans, he presented an agenda on immigration, border security, amnesty, intervention abroad, the Middle East, NAFTA, free trade, Putin and Russia that was a rejection of what the Bush-Boehner Party had stood for and what its presidential candidates in 2008 and 2012, John McCain and Mitt Romney, had run on.

If the Republican Party is “napping,” let it slumber on, undisturbed, for its time has come and gone. We are in a new world now.

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the recent, Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.

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44 Responses to Stick a Fork in It, the Old GOP Is Dead

Why is Pat Buchanan writing for the American *Conservative* if all that matters is nationalism? Given his unalloyed embrace of the president, it would seem there are more appropriate publications for him to contribute to.

There is much to be said about the questionable numbers quoted in this article (handing over 4 percent of our GDP to China each year?), but the mentions of Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen, all nations where the current administration has been happy to double down on past interventionist mistakes, should be sufficient to show that Buchanan’s judgement is clouded by his admiration for Trump’s nationalist rhetoric (whether Trump really puts America’s long term interests ahead of his own is up to debate).

I don’t see any indication that the RNC has changed. I’ve been getting RNC emails, both state and national, for many years. The ONLY MESSAGE in their appeals is tax evasion. The ONLY thing in a Republican’s mind is tax evasion.

The RNC emails carefully avoided talking about the “Trump issues” until Trump gave them a tax cut for the super-rich. Now the party endorses Trump, but ONLY because he endorsed tax evasion. They still don’t talk about populist issues, because populist issues are not tax evasion. Nothing matters except tax evasion.

Charles Krauthammer is noted to have said that the right thinks the left is mis-informed while the left thinks the right is evil.

Many other people have said similar.

The old GOP had to die and thank god it died. You simply cannot have a GOP as it was previously configured that was constantly scared, intimidated and destroyed by minority accusations of racism, prejudice, bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, islamophobia, etc…all the peoples that Hillary included in her list of deplorables.

The GOP needed the Trump spine and backbone and ability to deal with the lefts identity-victim politics. Who knows what will happen to Trump in the future but Trump has showed that a traditional GOP response wont win elections nor will a moderate GOP response.

Trump has been challenging the democrats on every single on of their platforms and winning. Trump has the democrats in a collapse with their only response investigations and conspiracy theories.

Republicans and Conservatives can run as twitter free – democrat light moderates but they should take a lesson that the left may be able to vote in a conformist block but the left will also eat itself to enforce that conformity. If they will do that to their own then they (democrats and media) will have no conscience in taking down a moderate republican or conservative.

Even Trump has difficulty governing and getting his message out but the old GOP would have had a shorter presidency than Nixon. The old GOP would not survive in the collusion between the democratic party and the media, between the corruption and collusion between the pay for play charities and the various federal agencies Obama manipulated for his own interests…nor would it survive immigration, multiculturalism, diversity, feminism, identity-victim politics, etc. Trump has revealed those ideologies for the maoist subversive manipulation of culture that they are which is something the old GOP was not within miles of accomplishing.

The old Democratic party is dead, too. What is rising out of the ashes of the 2016 election will be monsters bent on self-interest and hate of the other side. I do not see a middle ground being accepted by either side. The 2 main candidates to pick from were simply horrible, but they were representative of the ever growing rift, immorality, and lack of integrity this nation’s population is mired in. No blue or red wave will solve these problems.

Ummm… This all sounds great and all, except for the massive elephant in the room known as Israel! All those ties to “Russia” in the Mueller probe all connect back to Israel. Not to mention the glaring conflict of interest that goes by the name of Jared Kushner, who has direct investments in the ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF THE WEST BANK! Not to mention he has automatic citizenship to Israel by virtue of birthright. Trump was never a Putin stooge, he is and has been a Netanyahu puppet. Bought and paid for the use of the Likud curtesy of Sheldon Adelson. It’s all so open and obvious that not even the basement dweller tinhat wearing Hitler wanna be looser guys have mentioned it. Some research to whomever it concerns if you have the time and stomach for it.

The country gave away its manufacturing base, so now let’s all get behind a know-nothing authoritarian wannabe whose only business success is as a failed casino tycoon and con man, who thinks being president means you’re above the law.

How do you think that Trump “stands for” anything except screwing porn stars, enriching Trump, seeing his name glorified, and picking culture war fights with the majority of Americans that didn’t vote for him? He could’ve had Trump call-in hour on Fox I’m sure… but you’re going to waste your credibility supporting him as presient?

Boehner is now “free” to say what he really thinks, meaning that he was lying before about what he stood for. The voters seemed to notice the lack of connection between words and deeds in the old GOP. Which explains why it’s Trumps party now and the Boehner’s of the world can sip Bloody Mary’s at their leisure and blame the voters.

“A brief history: in seven elections starting in 1992, Republicans won the presidency three times, but the popular vote only once, in 2004, when George W. was still basking in his “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.”

And Trump hasn’t reversed this slide. he actually lost the popular vote by the largest margin of any president. Losing the popular vote and winning the electoral college is not a long term strategy for 2 reasons. It has only worked 5 times in the history of the country and because it is inherently anti-democratic and will create MASSIVE resistance if it were to continue to happen regularly. Pat doesn’t seem to have any ideas for how to actually win over a majority of voters. The lack of a true democratic majority is why we are seeing such paralysis within the congress right now.

The Bush-Boehner party needed to die, just as the Trump party needs to die. Then maybe actual conservatives can lead the new GOP back to actual conservative issues-like a balanced budget, less meddling overseas, treating all men equally, smaller government, and yes, actually reducing the size of the swamp.

“And perhaps someone can explain the wisdom of handing four percent of our GDP each year to an adversary nation, as U.S. admirals talk tough about confronting that adversary nation over islets and reefs in the South China Sea.”

Let me rephrase this for you, Mr. Buchanan:

“And perhaps someone can explain the wisdom of treating a nation with whom we trade, to mutual benefit, four percent of our GDP each year as an adversary, as U.S. admirals talk tough about confronting that adversary nation over islets and reefs in the South China Sea.”

We will see if the roll back of free trade is wise policy or not and yes it is welcome that the Trump presidency is taking a skeptical view of our past Iraq and Afghanistan invasions.

I welcome an evolution of the Republican party that makes it more relevant and populist. Unfortunately, the leader of this administration is so massively flawed that any positive policy contributions will be washed out by his low personal character, vanity, incoherence, and disrespect for decency. Just as Nixon’s positive foreign policy contributions were diluted by his abuse of executive power, this President and the GOP will not reap any benefits from his policy moves. He will go down in disgrace in the same manner as Nixon. Interesting that Mr. Buchanan is on the same (losing) side in both instances.

“And Trump hasn’t reversed this slide. he actually lost the popular vote by the largest margin of any president. Losing the popular vote and winning the electoral college is not a long term strategy for 2 reasons. It has only worked 5 times in the history of the country and because it is inherently anti-democratic and will create MASSIVE resistance if it were to continue to happen regularly. Pat doesn’t seem to have any ideas for how to actually win over a majority of voters. The lack of a true democratic majority is why we are seeing such paralysis within the congress right now.”

A Scientist who flunked U.S. Government and Civics 101. No, you don’t say.

No one calling the GOP racists/sexists/hates the poor/hates non-whites? Progress.

“And America’s willingness to bear the burden of Europe’s defense, as they ride virtually free, is visibly waning.”

Really? There is nary a peep in either party, establishment or base, against a military budget of over 700 billion dollars, and the U.S. having 800+ military bases around the world. And anyone in either party who does question THIS elephant in the room (Israel is a mere water buffalo, in comparison) is shouted down and belittled and lucky to escape being called a traitor.

And Trump, of course, thought we needed a big increase in defense spending.

THANK GOD and the voters for the demise of the “old and decrepit G.O.P.”. a large number of DemoRepublicratcans in the Republican party are FINALLY GOING AWAY much to the betterment of the country. Again we must THANK GOD and the voters for Presdient Trump!

The Neocon Republicans are dead! Long live the Paleocon Republicans!
Trump is neither, but he is a solid American in the truest sense.
Trump is basically a 1960 style American that believes in this country and wants to see it be what it once was when we made most of our own products. He is trying to turn things around and is making progress in doing so. The Neocons have been a blight on this country, as much as the communists that took over the Dhimmicrat party have been.
The Paleocons now have a chance to re-establish all that is good about this country, and I hope they will do it!

From One Guy: “The Bush-Boehner party needed to die, just as the Trump party needs to die. Then maybe actual conservatives can lead the new GOP back to actual conservative issues-like a balanced budget, less meddling overseas, treating all men equally, smaller government, and yes, actually reducing the size of the swamp.”

Remember a candidate named Ron Paul? The disillusioned had their chance with Mr. Paul but he was resoundingly rejected. Maybe he wasn’t racist or misogynistic enough for the Trump voters.

It’s not the “Old GOP” that’s dead, it’s the “Old GOP” that’s BACK with the so-called “GOP” which developed in the interim being a multinational corporation owned group that, like those corporations, had no real allegiance to the US or its citizens!

Aye, there’s the rub. This is the goal for both political parties. Not convince the electorate of the truth of their assertions or of the efficacy of their prescriptions, thereby persuading a majority to vote for your, but rather to just win. Say anything, do anything, promise anything, just win. And then once you’ve won, impose – a good choice of words, Pat – your will on the nation. Anyone standing in the way of that Imperial Will (nb, Jeff Sessions) needs to reevaluate his priorities, and if he wants to continue at the trough, conform to the demands of the winner. This is well beyond merely “Sad”. It goes to the heart of the meaning of tragic.

The problem is that Candidate Trump is not President Trump. A close look at President Trump suggests the Bush-Boehner ways continue, with the nonsense on Iran and the GOP’s big “accomplishment”: tax cuts funded by deficit spending. Rah! Rah! MIGA!

“It’s values, stupid”! Stick a fork in them. Perhaps both of America’s mainline parties are dead.

The astounding rise in hatred and violence during the Trump election and presidency may result because both “liberals” and “conservatives” perceive the unraveling of all the values that have come from religion and have made America great. From a “conservative or traditionalist”, as distinct from a “progressivist”, perspective, conservatives are rebellious because they see the liberals as reveling in the destruction of civilization, and liberals are frantic because they see conservatives as a force that threatens to unravel their unraveling.

The very identity of one force existentially threatens the very identity of the other force, which means that there can be no compromise, because the last thing any human can tolerate is the loss of one’s very being. This is the law of nature.

Presumably this has been the fate of every civilization. Civilization starts (according to Arnold Toynbee and his mentor, the first sociologist, Ibn Khaldun, seven hundred years ago), when a creative minority envisions paradigmatic change toward a higher level of existence and life and welcomes opportunities to carry out this vision in practice. Civilizations die when the majority no longer appreciate this wisdom, though, in my opinion, civilizations usually die when a minority or minorities turn the initial vision into a utopia that can be implemented only by turning the vision into a perverted totalitarian dogma.

In such a case, the “liberals” become dogmatic and totalitarian in their efforts to save civilization through militant secularism, and the conservatives can become even more totalitarian than the liberals in order to save the original spiritual vision, which unfortunately has already disintegrated into religious tribalism. There can be no consensus, much less civil unity, during the death of a civilization, because the lack of a consensus on the meaning of life is the real cause of civilizational self-destruction.

Where does this leave people like us? We could follow the “Benedictine Option” by retreating into monasteries the way the Christians did at the end of the Roman Empire until the time should be favorable to start a new civilization. Or, we could follow the Franciscan Option by going out into the highways and byways of civilization to preach the good news of salvation. Or we could combine the Benedictine and Franciscan options by doing both at once, which might be possible institutionally but is the most difficult option for the individual person.
Or, we could follow Hitler and his final solutions, or the Muslim ISIS by simply destroying the world. Take your pick!

Again, the problem with Trump is Trump. He’s a wretched, toxic, disgraceful, destructive, horrible human being who has chosen to put our already poisonous culture war into hyper-drive just because it helps him personally, in the moment.

Imagine, however, a principled, experienced and decent statesman on the right getting serious about controlling illegal immigration, ensuring that our trade policies take the middle class into consideration, demanding that our wealthy allies do more for their security, got tough with China on trade, actually put forth a bill to do massive infrastructure building rather than merely giving more money away to the uber-wealthy, and yes, defied the political correctness straight jacket?

That would not only be winning realignment for the GOP, but a winning thing for the country. Instead, we have Trump.

Certainly the GOP establishment must be destroyed. Exhibit A is Lindsey Graham, who just said that no lawyer he knows of would have disagreed with Jeff Sessions’ decision to recuse himself in the Russia probe. Graham is knowingly lying. It’s no mystery why he’s doing so. As an establishment Republican, Senator Graham knows the consequent post-recusal appointment of a special counsel–which Andrew McCarthy has shown to be malign fakery–is the only way the establishment can keep Trump from making good on his campaign promises.

A prophet is never listened to in his home. As the Soviets did not listen to Lenin when he said that, the Capitalists will sell you the rope with which you will hang him. The Chinese on the other hand are good students.

“Imagine, however, a principled, experienced and decent statesman on the right … demanding that our wealthy allies do more for their security, got tough with China on trade, actually put forth a bill to do massive infrastructure building rather than merely giving more money away to the uber-wealthy”

I think you’re imagining that elites on the right actually care about things like immigration and kneeling football players. Pffffft. No, they’re looking to rip the rest of us off, and conservatives are consistently enabling them. Stupid is as stupid does, I guess.

The Republican Party showed that it had started to stop being conservative and Republican when it nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964 and Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The conservative Republican Party was the party of Lincoln, vanquishing the quasi fascist caste system that only benefited the plutocratic oligarchs of the plantation society of the Confederacy, and pursuing external mercantilism and internal autarky economic policies to build up the world’s greatest industrial base.

The southern Democrats as the right home of the Confederacy favoured free trade and the use of force to achieve its goals

Once right wing southern Dixierats no longer felt welcome by the Democratic party with the passage of civil rights laws by President Johnson, they left the Democrats and metastasized and took over the formerly conservative Republican party.

The ultimate irony is that the conservative party of Lincoln is now the right wing party of the Confederacy. Like had been predicted since the end of the Civil War: THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN. The sons and daughters of the Confederacy have taken over the Republican party and used it to remake America from a conservative most prosperous country in the world to the right wing caste system of the modern day Confederacy kind of country.

Both conservatives and right wingers are nostalgic for the 50s and early 60s. The difference is that conservatives are nostalgic for the 1950s and early 1960s in America and right wingers are nostalgic for the 1850s and early 1860s in Dixie.

Pat has lost more than a step or two with his cognitive analysis recently. He actually seems to fall for
Trumps bluster over any proof of tangible results. Stupid wars, insane spending, and even more insane tax cuts are par for the course with the
Grand Old Party. What has Trump actually done about immigration? Very little I am afraid. Now he wants to start a trade war with the rest of the globe. U wonder what the masses in America are going to think when they will go broke just covering essentials. Actually, many already are. Sorry
Pat, but from my perspective everything with the GOP is the same!

One Buchanan argument (not used in this article) has been that the freetraders tended to be religious and social freethinkers and that the “Church and King” party was protectionist. As a Catholic he should realize that both parties were heretics. They were British, that’s what they do.

Like our current President, this article is short on facts, raises questions in a fact-deficient and inflammatory manner, and draws unsupported conclusions. Too many economics questions were raised without a cogent counter argument. More than having a spine issue, the GOP has a morals issue and an intelligence issue. Articles filled with tabloid logic, like this one, will not solve America’s problems.